Intentionality, Agency, and Performance

April 21st, 2006 Fred McVittie

Tonight there is a Conference Banquet at a local hotel, but I really don’t like that kind of thing, so am giving it a miss. I’ll probably grab a pizza later, or maybe ring down to reception for a sandwich. Anyway, this was the paper that stood out for me today.

It is a trait of all humans, but particularly of children, to attribute agency to inanimate objects. This tendency has variously been dubbed ‘the intentional stance’ (Dennett, 1987) and the operation of a ‘hyperactive agency detector’ (Barrett, 2004). This tendency is often considered to be naive and a precursor to more sophisticated methods for explaining form and action, and such attributions tend to be dubbed anthropomorphism or ‘Disneyfication’. It will be argued here that this strategy of recognising agency in non-human entities and objects can actually be regarded as a highly effective method for gaining complex tacit knowledge and for improving performance and for learning particular skills and concepts. Human behaviour, when relating to entities which are considered to have agency, contains far more abstract content, and that content is far more integrated, than behaviour directed toward objects regarded simply as inanimate. The mobilisation of intentionality and agency, and even anthropomorphism, can therefore be shown to be a robust method for holistic learning.

Barrett, J. L. (2004). Why would anyone believe in God? Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press.

Dennett (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, Mass. London, MIT Press.

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Clover 4

May 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

And this 5-leafed specimin.

I’m not intentionally looking for them, they just seem to be ‘jumping out’ at me. Very strange.

Posted in Attention, Clover, Intentionality, Story | No Comments »

Folk Physics and Agency

October 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is a principle of Folk Physics that heavy objects fall faster than light objects. This principle was widely accepted as true until the time of Galileo, and is still felt as intuitively correct by many people today until they actually carry out relevant experiments. Evidently this principle is incorrect and is easily disproved simply by dropping two object of dissimilar weight and observing what happens, and this finding seems to illustrate the ‘naivite’ of Folk Physics and its inherent weakness. Folk (Naive) Physics seems, with this example, to be prone to substantial factual errors and therefore inferior to other, more rational physics systems such as the Newtonian model (which predicts the result of the falling objects experiment accurately). However, whilst the prediction made by Folk Physics is, in this case, incorrect, this is not due to an error in the physics but rather to a misapplication of the Folk Physics model to a system which lies outside its area of explanation. Folk Physics is, to a large extent, the physics not of inanimate objects, but of intentional agents, and describes the functioning of a world in which matter is animated and motion is purposive. The force of gravity, within Folk Physics, is felt not as the passive attraction of inert masses, but as the active striving of material agents. Like two dogs pulling at their leads with different degrees of force, the two objects of different weights, when attributed with agency and purpose (entelechy), will inevitably move at different speeds when released. Within the limits of its own purview Folk Physics is an accurate description of the world and makes accurate predictions. It is only when it is misapplied (as it commonly is) that its limitations are revealed.

Posted in Agency, Intentionality, Naive Physics, Newton, Isaac, Physics | No Comments »